


How Can You Do It Alone

by sidana



Series: The Daniel Zeeman Stories [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 04:58:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: More on Daniel's struggle to recovery after the events in 'Blue Moon'





	1. Chapter 1

Another one that was written around 2011 and originally posted at Pomme De Sang 

Disclaimer: not my characters, not my universe. I'll put everyone back where I found them when I'm done playing with them. 

How Can You Do It Alone

******************

"You know, if you feel like you aren't ready for this, I can skip out on Sunday dinner. Seems like all morning long, your anxiety has kept getting worse," Stavros said, his arm wrapping tighter around Daniel's shoulders as the two men sat on the living room couch in Stavros' home watching television. 

"And then to have to explain why I'm not bringing a date after I surely spent the past week being the sole source of family gossip because I did say I was bringing a date to Sunday dinner? The same regular family event where I haven't brought a woman to for years, and have missed far too many times in the interim because I was too hung over to make the drive. I'm not sure that would make me any less nervous, and it would actually be worse in some ways because you're not just my date; you're the guy I still lean on a lot when my control over the hyena feels like it's slipping." He responded to the touch by snuggling closer to the other man. 

"If it's control you're worried about, you know I wouldn't normally expect some other shifter group to look after our own for that, but I'm pretty sure that Richard Freaking Zeeman can keep one lone new hyena in line if he has to."

"Richard's my brother, but he's not my pack. You are. And it's time I finally had That Talk with the rest of my family, and I want you to be there," Daniel said. He had learned quickly it was the pack's structure, rules, and presence that helped give him the strength to deal with the bloody chaos inside him that came with lycanthropy. What he hadn't expected was the intimate emotional connection that people typically made with their sponsors, how you couldn't help but get close to the people that spent all their spare time with the newly infected so they could learn control of and acceptance of their beast. Linus had become a close friend in the past two months, but it was Stavros who had turned into what Daniel had thought of as his first serious boyfriend.

"Then I'm going to be there for you," Stavros said. 

"Thanks," he said, closing his eyes and taking in the smell all around him of Stavros and Linus and the handful of others who tended to spend a lot of time at Stavros' house. It was the scent of safety and community and managed to fill a vacant spot inside him that he hadn't really known he had. "I think part of why I want to do this now is that I actually have people who I can come back home to if this all goes horribly wrong."

Stavros didn't say anything at that, but instead gently nuzzled at his head, his nose brushing over a spot just above Daniel's ear. Daniel reacted to that by turning his head and catching the other man in a kiss. 

"You know there is something you could do for me right now. I mean watching a couple of talking heads on the tv discussing Chinese trade policy doesn't exactly take the edge off things when there are other things in other places we could be doing that would knock my anxiety level down." He had had only a handful of careful partners after the first test result had come back positive and then Narcissus had a rule that you didn't have sex in the first month after you were infected. All things considered, Daniel felt like he still had a lot of lost time to make up. 

"Then let's waste no time," Stavros said, and the two men headed off toward the bedroom.


	2. Chapter 2

Two months earlier

For all that so many of them tried to dress alike, it was easy to tell which people in the line that snaked out front of Narcissus in Chains were part of the scene and which ones were tourists. Daniel could see it in their eyes as many of them watched him in turn cut ahead of them to the front door of the club. He approached the bouncer, who politely nodded at him, then did a brief double take at his face. 

"Can I help you with something?" The words were polite, probably more so than usual because of the family obvious resemblance.

"Is Narcissus here tonight? I'd like to talk to him." 

"Let me check the VIP list." The bouncer pulled out his smartphone.

"Daniel Zeeman. I don't think I'd be on there, but I hope I can meet him anyways." He wasn't usually a person to lean on family name to get what he wanted, but in this case, it seemed like it actually could make a difference. 

"Since I take it you mean that Zeeman, I'll not only let you in, I'll comp your cover charge," he said, putting the smartphone away and pulling not only a paper ticket for admission out of his pocket but a couple smaller stubs labeled for free drinks as well. 

"Thanks," he said, taking the tickets from the bouncer.

"Enjoy the show," the other man replied. 

It wasn't quite Daniel's plan for the night, but that wasn't the discussion he wanted to get into at the door. To the mumbling of the people in the line, who seemed to think it wasn't fair that the guy dressed rather ordinarily in jeans and a t-shirt got to skip ahead, he walked into the club. Dodging leather-clad partiers, cocktail waitrons, and other employees and patrons of the club he made his way to the theater part of the complex. He looked past the stage where an act was doing something involving far more leather straps than what was necessary for their actions to really work, finally seeing Narcissus and his entourage at a booth in the corner. To the sounds of bad techno music and screams that sounded more acting than real, he made his way to that table. 

"Daniel Zeeman, brother of, I take it?" Narcissus, who looked just like his picture on the web site, said as he looked Daniel up and down. 

"Yes. I'm not normally a person who tries to trade on my family connections, but I was hoping that I could have a couple words with you in a quieter place than this," he said gesturing a little with his hands at the theatre area. 

"The night has been uneventful so far, and I'm curious, so why not? If you'll follow me then," Narcissus said, rising gracefully from the table. Two others, probably bodyguards, rose as well. They walked past the stage act and then through another door guarded by a different bouncer. It was unmarked, but something about it made him think it was heavily used. From there they went down a broad hallway then through another door into a room that was a mixture of traditional furniture, stocks, and racks. As Narcissus took a seat on one of the couches, Daniel snuck a brief look at the toys on the walls. Unlike what was happening in the theatre, they were all about function and not just about looking exotic. 

"So what brings you here?" Narcissus asked as Daniel took a deep breath and felt more nervous than he had about anything in a long time. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to screw up. 

"I want to join the hyenas." 

There was a brief look of surprise on Narcissus' face before it slide back into a mask of polite interest. He stood up from the couch and almost before Daniel could blink, he was in his face, his movement containing nothing human in it until Narcissus ran a hand along his face. Daniel's heart went racing; he was certain it was loud enough that Narcissus could hear or feel it too. Which was probably part of the point. It was possible to lie to weres, but you generally had to be calm from the beginning to pull it off. 

"Did Richard send you here as some sort of test of our alliance?"

"No. He doesn't know I'm here at all." 

"And why should I trust you." At that, Narcissus stopped shielding what he was from Daniel. A thumb ran along his cheekbone, the magical energy rubbing like rough sandpaper across his skin. 

"Because I've got far too much to lose to risk it with a lie."

"And just what do you have to lose?" Narcissus' face was so close to his that Daniel had a hard time focusing on it. For a split second he considered closing his eyes before he decided to look slightly to the left and toward the floor. 

"My life. And I'm not ready to go just yet." 

"They say that there are worse things that can happen to someone than dying." 

"Common enough saying. But I can tell you that if you're told that if you try to turn away and not watch your mother being gang-raped then your eyelids will be cut off and you'll have to watch anyway, well I'm glad I lived long enough to see those rapists torn to pieces." 

"I have heard parts of the story of Frank Niley in the Tennessee hills, but not in those words before." 

"Some things just don't come up in normal conversation, you know." Or in conversation ever. He wasn't sure why or how he'd managed to say that, only that he had finally put that part of the experience into words for someone else for the first time since it had happened. Apparently he wanted this even more than he'd been willing to admit to himself to that point. The hand continued to brush his face, but the power seemed less rough than it had moments before. 

"But that's part of why you're here tonight." 

"After that, I spent a lot of time chasing darkness. Sometimes it was because I wanted to beat it; sometimes I wanted it to just consume me. I spent a lot of time not being careful because there didn't seem to be a reason to be and then after I started being safe again, I discovered that I'd done physical damage to myself that science can't heal."

The hand went from his face to shoulder to the crook of his left elbow as Narcissus examined the first bruise and healing wound there, and then the second bruise and wound on the back of his hand. 

"And this is from?" 

"IV antibiotics. Stupid little rash that I ended up in the hospital over." 

"If that was the treatment, then it wasn't so little." Fingers brushed his forearm between the two bruises. 

"Not for people like me."

"People like you?"

"Who have pretty much no immune system left." He hated saying the other word, hated even thinking it. 

"I am sorry," Narcissus said. Daniel looked back from floor to his face, and there seemed to be a little bit of softness that hadn't been there before. "But why come here, to me now?"

"Because I'm running out of other options. The so-called good drugs were wrecking my liver. Options B, C, and D aren't doing a good enough job in keeping me from getting sick again and again. My doctor talked me into a support group a few months back, and after the official meetings, we'll end up at a bar for beer, near-beer, and soda afterwards, and the talk will sometimes be about 'non-traditional treatment options', as the euphemism goes. Seems like everyone knows or knows of someone who decided to go the supes route because they decided the new problems from that were worth the tradeoff of getting rid of the first problem. Most of the time, it seems like people go for the Church of Eternal Life, but a few get hooked up with the weres, including the hyenas if the stories I hear are correct."

"There have been a few, but we don't infect just any charity case," Narcissus said, hand now pinching on Daniel's arm hard enough to hurt a little. "Why not go to your brother instead?"

"Because while I love Richard dearly, I've also got a pretty clear idea of his flaws. He's got a hard time looking at the world from other peoples' points of view. I know how much he hates being a werewolf, and I don't think he'd really understand why I'd think it would be a better option than what I've got right now. And it gets complicated with my family. They don't really know who I am in some important ways because if I tried to talk to them, they'd assume it was entirely because of some really bad things that went down, and not give credit to the idea that I was headed down that path even before that."

"So who are you then?" Narcissus said, fortunately skipping the bad things question for now.

"Someone who would rather fuck a man than a girl four out of five times. I used to bring a lot of girlfriends to the house back in high school and college. Never mind that a little bit before… before that trip I was figuring out that men could be a lot more interesting and that I was always going to end up on that side of bi. If things had been different, then what probably would have been different about me was mostly that I wouldn't have explored pain or the hard edge like I did, and that I would have stayed sober more often and given more of a damn about my future, not that I would have been been married to Sara or Carrie or Bethany at this point," he said, watching the other man's face change subtly as he took in what Daniel said. For all that there were things that Daniel had a hard time talking or even thinking about, he had learned how to talk easily about sex itself in the past few years.

"You say that and yet this is the first time you've come through my doors?"

"The theatre side of the club isn't my thing. Too much anticipation and build up leaves me bored, and once you realize you're reminding yourself that you have to pick up your dry-cleaning on Monday instead of watching the act, you're never going to buy into that scene. And the back rooms, I know how gossip circulates around here and I didn't want word of what I was doing to get back to Richard. There are other places in greater St. Louis where you can do most of the same things and not have to worry about family finding out."

"Yet you came here today and walked in the back rooms."

"There's a price to pay for approaching you, even if nothing really happens beyond us talking, and I'm willing to pay that. And part of me is getting tired of hiding all the time, having one more thing in my life I'm juggling. Maybe if Richard heard some sort of gossip first and then came to me it would be easier rather than me having to make the first move."

"If at the end of it all, you remain human, then how you handle your brother remains your choice. However, if you become mine, then there is the risk that you draw me and my people into conflict with the wolves. And you will do what you are told to do to try to mitigate that conflict."

"I'm good with that. Sometimes I need a kick in the ass to do what I need to do."

"And you would do what you are told in every other aspect of your life," Narcissus said, moving his face so close to Daniel's that he could feel breathing on his cheek. "I do not go so far as to make claim on your soul, but every other part of you becomes mine: your body, your loyalty, your name. How does that make you feel?"

Daniel closed his eyes, feeling the warmth from Narcissus spreading across his face. Suspecting that 'a little bit turned on' was not the right answer to that question, he tried to push the more primitive part of his brain toward the mental equivalent of a cold shower. 

"I've got friends among the weres, and while they'd never share like state secrets or anything, I do hear gossip that I think they normally wouldn't talk about to humans who weren't related to someone important. And they've all tend to say that they had reservations when the hyenas wanted into the Coalition, but that you turned out to be a fair leader and that the hyenas pulled their weight." And a part of him felt like Narcissus and the hyenas couldn't screw up his life any worse than he'd managed to do on his own.

"And how do I know you have what it takes to make it as a hyena? Every new were is a risk, you doubly so. It takes commitment and discipline, and is definitely not an easy way out of your current problems."

The easiest quick response was because he'd managed to survive Tennessee, but he knew that Narcissus would not be satisfied with the quick and would dig down with questions on things he still didn't talk about. Se he went with a different example.

"The last two years of my life have been nothing but an exercise in self-discipline- going from a job I loved to a job that's I thought was just okay because the health insurance was way better and they let me telecommute whenever I'm feeling partway sick yet again. And then trying to find a drug combination that will keep me alive as long as possible. No matter how crappy I felt or what new and awful side effect I was getting, I stuck with my treatment plan until my doctor came up with some adjustments that might or might not make it all more tolerable. And then I do absolutely everything else I'm supposed to do to keep myself healthy. I watch my diet, exercise regularly but not excessively, no alcoholic beverages even though I really lust after a glass of wine once in a while because it would make my meds less effective. " 

"It would only get harder from there. You would be trading one set of restrictions for another set that would be even more difficult."

"And yet while I'd be giving up freedom in some parts of my life, I'd be getting it back in others."

"And getting pulled hard into the supernatural community here with no way to walk away from it," Narcissus was almost whispering into his ear at this point.

"Which could already happen if someone wanted to use me to get to Richard." Which had very much already happened. And if it did happen again, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have sharper nails and teeth so he could fight back better.

"True. I see risk and I see reward with you," Narcissus said. Then he kissed Daniel lip to lip. 

Daniel felt the rush of magical energy again, and fought the instinct to pull back against it. He carefully nibbled back, drinking in that magic without opening his mouth because then it would be entirely too much. He want from a little bit turned on to entirely hard as it crashed through him and Narcissus wrapped his arms around him in embrace. Then far too soon and before anything else could happen, Narcissus let him go and stepped back from him as Daniel opened his eyes. 

"And I do enjoy taking risks when the reward is clear. Spend the next week arranging to telecommute for your employer again. Discontinue your medications; we don't want your immune system to have too much fight against the lycanthropy virus. And then come back here in seven days with a week's worth of casual clothing and an explanation to those who would notice such things that you're going to be out of town for a while. And it will be seven days exactly. Time now for you to start to learn to follow orders you are given. And I now have other scheduled meetings to attend to. You may go now or you may explore the rest of the back rooms as you wish. I do believe you were given a VIP pass, were you not?"

"Yeah. And thank you. For that, for the offer, for everything."

"Don't thank me yet. You'll come to curse me before long; there's always a point that happens," Narcissus said, reaching toward him one last time and tracing the bruise on his elbow before he walked out the door with one of his guards.

"And then it does get better," the remaining guard said, speaking for the first time since it had all started.

Nothing was certain in that regard, but Daniel really hoped it was going to be the case.


	3. Chapter 3

He did go back to the club a week later, following Narcissus' directions carefully. It was around three in the afternoon, with only a handful of cars around back. He assumed they were employees getting ready to open the venue up for the night. Since the entry around the front of the building had looked closed and locked, he knocked on the back door labeled 'employees only'. 

"You'd be Daniel then? I'm Linus." Daniel blinked and his eyes adjusted to the difference in light indoors, finding himself in a nondescript hallway with fluorescent tube lighting overhead. Linus, was fit and looked to be somewhere in his twenties. His skin tone and dark hair suggested his ancestors had been in the Americas long before Columbus, but neither the accent nor the name gave Daniel a clue about whether Linus was U.S. Native American or Hispanic. 

"Yeah, that would be me," he said, awkwardly sticking his hand out to shake. Linus may not have had the raw power of Narcissus, but it was enough to cause the hair on Daniel's arm to stand up as skin touched skin. 

"Glad you decided to come. Part of the reason for the time gap is to let us do a discreet background check, and from what we learned, we think you can be a real asset to the pack." Linus led him down the hallway, through one door into another hallway, and then into a small office area where another man sat at the kind of cheap desk you'd find at Office Depot. He was much paler than Linus, with green eyes, freckles, and reddish-blond hair that threatened to curl if it got much longer than its current cropped cut; Daniel recognized him as the man from before who had told him before that it did get better. 

"Welcome back. I'm Stavros, and I'm the one responsible for getting you to Narcissus today. Which isn't as simple as you might expect. Infecting someone over eighteen with lycanthropy is no longer a death penalty case, but it is still on the books as a felony so we have to be careful. Narcissus likes you, and we feel like we can trust you, but we have to follow 'trust but verify' in order to maintain pack security. So let's get the preliminaries taken care of now. Today, you're going to go to a place that no humans are allowed to know the location of. So your suitcase or duffel bag for the clothing you brought will be left here until we can check it for any bugs or tracking devices. If you've got a cell phone or computer, you'll also leave them here. When we get to the farm, you'll have phone and computer access tomorrow, but it's through our machines and they're set up to make it look like you're in Singapore or El Salvador or something when you call or connect outbound. Do you have your wallet and car keys with you?" 

"Yes." 

"Then can you put them on the desk?" Daniel followed the instructions. 

"Thanks. Now Linus is going to pat you down for any devices attached your body. If you could please take your shirt and shoes off, and spread your legs apart?" Daniel had won an old t-shirt and jeans that, while not skin tight, didn't leave much room to hide anything. He followed the instructions, kicking his sneakers off and stepping around them as he pulled the tee off. Linus' hands started near his groin and then worked their way down Daniel's legs before picking up his shoes and examining them closely. 

"We're clear. Not that I assumed anything else, but you've got to follow the protocol," Linus said, almost but not quite an apology at the invasion of personal space. 

"I understand you've got to do your job and all," Daniel said, sliding shirt and shoes back on as Stavros pulled something out of the desk.

"Car keys we need so we can move your car away from here and eventually drive it up to the farm after a few days if all goes well. As for your wallet," he said as he put it in something that looked like a tin foil bag before handing it back to Daniel. "This is lined in order to block out any RFID tags and other things that might generate a traceable signal. At this point, I need to ask you if you still want to continue, or if you want to walk away now and go back to your old life."

"No. I still want to join the hyenas, I mean." 

"Let's head on out to my car then," Linus said 

The car turned out to be a black Toyota Highlander. Linus waived him into a back seat as Stavros took the shotgun spot, digging for something in the glove compartment. Daniel shut the door, looking around the parking lot and saying one more round of farewell to his human life as he clicked the seatbelt into place. After similar clicks in the front seats, Stavros passed him a pair of sunglasses with side shields. 

"Please put these on for the duration of the trip," Stavros said. 

Daniel did as directed, discovering that lenses blocked out all light and that the only thing he could see was a very narrow bit on the edges of the side shields. 

"It's a blindfold?" he asked. 

"Yeah. Since with this leadfoot over there," Stavros started.

"Hey, like you aren't even worse about that!" Linus' tone of protest suggested that this was a discussion that the men had had many times, but it wasn't overly serious. 

"Since this leadfoot speeds probably 95% of the time, and sunglasses are far easier to explain than a bandana around someone's face if he gets pulled over by the cops yet again." 

"Trust but verify, I take it?" 

"We have to be until the first blood test turns up positive." Daniel's face tensed up at the mention of positive blood tests, and the guys on the front seat must have misread it as general nerves because it resulted in a question about whether he preferred silence, small talk or music for the trip to the farm, wherever it was. Daniel asked for rock music, figuring it was the best distraction for however long the drive was, and Stavros skimmed through the radio channels as Linus pulled out of the parking lot. 

After what seemed like a longer drive than it probably was, the SUV started to slow and Stavros told him he could take the sunglasses off. Daniel glanced at the clock on the dashboard, noting that the trip had only taken about half an hour, even though it had seemed longer than that. And then he looked out the windows at what the men had described as the farm.

"So it really is a farm, then?" he said, taking in neat rows of some sort of wheat or oats or something on one side of the drive and rows of corn on the other. Immediately up the driveway was a large farmhouse, even larger barn to one side and to other the side was a neat line of newer-looking single and doublewides. "It's not quite what I expected, not that I'm sure what I expected."

"Call it truth in advertising," Linus said. 

"As for the trailers, yeah not quite Narcissus' club style, but when we started to grow the pack quickly a while back, we needed more shelter space. Unlike some shifter groups, we don't have a whole bunch of people involved in construction, and it was easier and way quicker to bring manufactured homes in and install them onto foundations over about a week of disruption time than to have months of outsiders messing around with electrical systems and plumbing and everything."

Stavros' explanation seemed so ordinary at the moment as Linus came to a stop near the barn and they got out of the SUV. But then the whole point was probably for the farm to blend in with any number of other farms up and down this stretch of the Mississippi River. And then he saw Narcissus walking out of the barn and he was reminded just how ordinary this place was not. 

Narcissus smiled as he continued forward. He had on leather flip flops, and a brightly colored women's swimsuit cover-up, and looked for all the world like he had just gotten back from beach vacation. He gave Stavros and then Linus brief hugs, then took both of Daniel's forearms in his hands, drawing Daniel closer for a brief kiss on the cheek. 

"Welcome to my house in the country. I'm glad you decided to come, and assume you're now planning to stay for a while?"

"Yes, I am." He had always heard that Narcissus liked to keep others slightly off balance, and sudden affect of proper Southern gentleman hosting company seemed to be part of that. 

"Then you need to understand my rules here. I know you've been in the scene for a while so hopefully I don't have to start all the way from the beginning." Daniel nodded. "Then understand the rules are different in this place and time. You can say no and walk away now and the boys will drive you back to the city . But if you continue forward from this point, there is only submission to me. There are no safe words; there is no begging or pleading that will influence what I do next. You will do exactly as you are told, and I will do my best to infect you while at the same time not killing you. After hearing this, do you want to go back to St. Louis?" 

"No. I want to be here. To be with you," Daniel said. Considering how he knew he had screwed up his own life and how he still felt guilt over possibly screwing up the lives of other people, getting infected with lycanthropy shouldn't seem like an easy way to escape from his problems. 

"Then walk through that door to the barn, shower yourself clean, and then go out the other door into the white room. I will join you there shortly," Narcissus said. 

Daniel took a deep breath, inhaling the countryside around him and trying to fix that impression in his mind. Richard had talked about how much his sense of smell had changed after he had been infected; Daniel now found himself wondering just how different the farm with its smells and sounds and tastes would seem after the full moon. Then, not letting himself look back at the SUV, he walked into the barn. 

The first room was effectively a locker room. A row of showers were on one side of a half wall, sinks and toilet stalls were on the other side. To the far wall, there was one shelving unit that contained baskets, some empty and some filled with clothes, while another contained thick white towels that were nicer than what you'd probably see in even an expensive health club. Daniel crossed the room to the baskets, putting his shoes into an open basket first and then folding the rest of his clothes neatly on top of them, the foil of the packet surrounding his wallet crinkling briefly. He showered as directed, cranking up the water temperature as hot as he could stand it, using the soap and shampoo out of the dispensers near the showers, neither rushing through the process nor dawdling under the shower. Then he wrapped one of the towels around him, letting himself briefly enjoy how it was indeed as soft as it looked as it wicked moisture away from his skin. Tucking it around his waist, he left the locker room through the other door. 

The white room was another case of truth in description- simply a large room with white tile covering both floor and walls. The only color, such that it was, came from a silver table in the middle, some navy chairs against the far wall, the silver hose faucets on two of the other walls, and the large drain in the middle of the floor. It all smelled strongly of bleach even to his human nose. The bleach came from hosing blood and other things down the drain, he suddenly knew with certainty. Everything that had been abstract before about what would happen was now suddenly very real and for the first time, Daniel felt fear about what was going to happen. No one else was there yet; he could still leave now and go home if he wanted to. Home to a life that had come to seem so very empty. And then moment and opportunity passed, and Narcissus and the other two men walked into the white room. They sat down on the chairs while Narcissus began to speak.

"Understand this about me. I expect obedience from all of my hyenas. In many cases, I also want them to find pleasure in that obedience, to serve with a willing heart. And in this room, that means your last sexual experience as a human will be with me just as, if all goes well, your first sexual experience as a hyena."

"Okay," Daniel said softly, not certain if he was supposed to speak at all. 

Narcissus didn't respond to that. Instead he moved closer to Daniel, lightly tracing his fingers and thumbs across Daniel's chest, shoulders, and arms before pulling back in around Daniel's elbows and running his thumbs along the bottom of Daniel's rib cage. His hands went around Daniel's rib cage, pulling him closer so that Narcissus could first kiss and then lightly bite his collarbone as Daniel held him by the shoulders, neither pulling him closer nor pushing his away. Narcissus then worked northward. He kissed and licked Daniel's throat as his hands moved down to cradle Daniel's ass outside the towel. Then finally their lips and tongues met, the mix of simple skin to skin contact and magical energy sending Daniel straight to arousal. He moaned, pushing his hips closer toward Narcissus, who, to his disappointment, pulled away from him. 

"Don't worry. I just want to have a good look at you," Narcissus said, pulling away the towel. But it was that first look that always made Daniel a little nervous with a new partner. While he couldn't see the scars on Daniel's ass from the front, and Daniel had always let the hair grow to hide the one on his scrotum, the two burns on his inner thighs that had required skin grafts where still very visible no matter what he did. But if Narcissus did seem to notice the scars much, it didn't cause him to pause as he bent down and lightly kissed each of Daniel's hipbones. Daniel twitched hard, wishing that Narcissus would just go ahead and find that point between those bones with his mouth already. But then he had never had much patience when it came to sex. That actually drew a chuckle from Narcissus.

"Remember I am the one who decides how fast or how slowly we proceed," he said, standing back up so that he could kiss Daniel on the lips again as his hands cradled Daniel's ass, this time skin to skin. What was not skin to skin was Narcissus' erection, which kept brushing against Daniel's own through the thin material of the sun dress. Then Narcissus picked him up, and before Daniel could really register surprise at that, he found himself leaning against the table, his seat bones just resting against the edge of the metal. 

"Hands stay here," Narcissus said, placing each of Daniel's hands along the same edge of the table. 

And then Narcissus went down on him with preternatural speed, swallowing Daniel's cock up so quickly in his mouth that Daniel barely had time to gasp. Daniel wanted to reach forward at that, to run his hands through Narcissus' hair and knead at his shoulders like a cat. But mindful of Narcissus' orders, he kept just in control enough that he did not. As Narcissus continued to devour him, he spread Daniels' knees apart, forcing Daniel's outstretched hands and arms to take more of a role in keeping him upright. The reason for it all became quickly apparent as the finger began to probe its way into Daniel's ass. Daniel felt his erection reflexively start to falter at the intrusion as it frequently did, but then Narcissus' thumb slid over his taint, pressing down on that spot that was a switch to send him erect once again. He quickly found himself bucking forward into Narcissus' mouth as the trio of sensations flooding his cock, taint, and ass threatened to overwhelm him. He expected Narcissus to pull back at that point; he knew the other man could be a tease, wouldn't be surprised if he'd step back to drag it out at any moment. But instead Narcissus took it as a cue to work harder and faster, two other fingers joining the first in Daniels' ass, another hand cupping his balls as the thumb of his taint continued its push and Narcissus' mouth drawing tighter and deeper around him until he couldn't stand it anymore. He came as hard as he ever had, Narcissus effortlessly swallowing up his cum as he did. 

And before he even stopped moaning, Narcissus pulled his hand out of him, flipping him stomach down onto the table. and spreading his legs wide once more. 

"Do not move," Narcissus said, quickly walking back into the locker room. Daniel could hear the brief running of a faucet, and then Stavros was near his face pulling something out of his pocket. 

"What's your dominant hand?" Stavros asked.

"I'm left-handed," Daniel said as Stavros passed the object to him.

"The next part of it, it can help with the pain if you've got something to bite down on and also helps to keep you from biting through your tongue. And if it's not working for you, just spit it out."

"Thanks," he said, looking over the mouthpiece, which seemed to be some sort of leather and looked like something a football player in the 1920s would have used. He slid it into his mouth, biting down on it and discovering it seemed to have just the right amount of give. 

"Now hold him down, boys." The voice wasn't and yet was Narcissus'. Daniel looked toward the door, where Narcissus now stood naked and in half form, his erection still large and hard despite the shift. Daniel tried to stand up at that point, every instinct in his body saying to get clear of the table and run as far away as he could from the monster at the doorway. But Stavros had grabbed onto his upper arms and kept them pressed to the table while Linus had slid underneath it, grabbing each of his ankles and pressing them against each table leg. He could not move, could not even really properly get his feet under himself, his spread legs had left his ass exposed, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. 

"I say again, do not move. You really don't want me hitting a major vein or artery now," Narcissus said. Daniel did his best to hold still at that point, trusting that Narcissus was telling him the truth. 

Narcissus circled behind him, and he felt claws and fur brush against his ass cheeks, first somewhat gently and then more persistently so that the length of Narcissus' cock could brush against Daniel's ass crack. He could feel no lube on the cock, which he had actually come to enjoy when he had been as well-prepared as he was now, so he found himself tensing up some parts of himself while relaxing other muscles in anticipation of penetration. What he couldn't anticipate was just how large and wide Narcissus was while in half form, how each thrust kept stretching him and stretching him until he was sure he couldn't fit a millimeter more inside him. But with each unrelenting pounding moment, he did, taking in the giant member larger than any dildo or ass plug he had tried until finally Narcissus' groin smacked against Daniel's ass, the cock pressing against his prostrate so hard and rough that the pain could only turn into pleasure. 

Just when he though he was used to the cock constantly thrusting into him, Narcissus began to claw across his back, the sharp nails digging through flesh like razors. It hurt, but it was just the right amount of pain. Daniel had gotten into S&M to work through issues between his ears but he had stayed in the scene because he had come to revel in the physical rush of endorphins that came with pain. Those endorphins were the chocolate sauce on the sundae; they took vanilla and moved it to another amazing level. And this, this was utterly perfect as the pain in his back seemed to be on a direct wire to the pain in his groin and it all reformed itself into pleasure by the time those nerve impulses made it back to his brain. He wasn't going to get hard again; it was too soon after the amazing blow job. But when the pain itself was as good as it was now, he was actually glad to not be distracted by arousal. 

And then Narcissus bit into his left shoulder, the teeth rough and tearing in a way that the caws never could have. It wasn't pain that could turn into pleasure anymore. It was simply pain he wanted to get away from at all costs. He screamed as loud as he could as he bit down on the mouth guard, the noise coming from him surpassingly loud despite the gag. He tried to wrestle himself forward from Narcissus, only to smack his face against the hard steel table. He tried to push back against Narcissus, only to discover that it offered up another slightly different angle for those awful teeth to sink in. And when he tried to roll sideways, it was only inches before he was stopped by the impossibly strong holds of the two other men by the table. He screamed again, but the teeth and the pain seemed to go on forever with no way of escaping from it. And when it had gone long beyond what he thought he could bear, it finally stopped and Narcissus slid out of him. He spit the gag out, feeling too hoarse and too spent to say anything. He wanted to curl up into a ball on his side but he could already tell that the instinctive attempt to protect his vital organs would only make the pain from his back worse. Just as he managed to work up enough energy to groan, he saw Narcissus walking back toward him in full human form. The sun dress was back on, and he carried a tool box in one hand. He opened the tool box, and Daniel cringed, expecting some sort of next round that he just couldn't bear to begin. 

But instead the box turned out to be first aid supplies, and the three men began to cover the wounds on his back, Stavros and Linus clearing blood away from the wounds before covering it with more gauze and tape while Narcissus gently cradled Daniel's face in his hands and made reassuring noises as he ran his thumbs across Daniel's cheeks, the unexpected kindness on the other end of the spectrum as the pain that had come a short time before.


	4. Chapter 4

"Okay, big deep breath time here. I mean they're my family and all and the worst most of them can do is utterly destroy me emotionally, right?" Daniel said as Stavros parked the Highlander just shy of the Zeeman family home. 

"It's probably not going to come to that, and remember that no matter what happens, I'm a hundred percent on the Team Darius side for the festivities," Stavros said. He turned the engine off, giving Daniel a brief hug before pocketing the keys. As they got out of the SUV, Richard, who had been shooting baskets at the Miller's driveway hoop, waved them over. 

Daniel, figuring that it was better to go home with as many allies as he could find, cut across the yard around some high shrubs, and to his old neighbors' driveway. Stavros was a step or two behind him, ready to support him if need be. The breeze put him upwind from Richard, but as he got closer, the smell of wolf grew strong. It wasn't a necessarily a bad thing; it just seemed off of kilter compared to what you'd expect. It was like someone offered you a Pepsi and when you tasted it, it was Sam's Cola instead. 

Placing the ball next to the backboard post, Richard took the last few steps to close the gap between him. He hugged Stavros first, muttering a polite greeting. For a second, Daniel was a bit surprised at that before the lessons on pack and inter-species politics kicked in. Stavros was an alpha in the hyena pack, and despite whoever his relatives were, Daniel was still a guy who hadn't entirely completed his probationary period yet, though everyone seemed to be happy with his control over his beast. Then Richard finished his courtesies with Stavros and enveloped him in wolf and laundry soap and just a little bit of sweat. 

"I wanted to catch you before you went into Mom and Dad's house so we could talk a little first," Richard said. He had on khakis, a light blue dress shirt, and dress loafers, which was pretty much his usual uniform for Zeeman Sunday dinners. Daniel's variation on the theme was to go with a white sweater instead, while Stavros had opted for blue Dockers and white dress shirt. 

"About what?" Daniel said. The three men ended up a rough triangle. Stavros slid his right hand between the top of Daniel's pants and the sweater, his palm settling on the skin of Daniel's lower back. As tempting as was to press himself shoulder to ankle with the other man, Daniel didn't want to be seen as weak and hiding behind him, so he let the hand serve as his connection back to Stavros and his pack. It was enough, at least for now.

"About my fault in everything that's happened to you. I've been doing a lot of thinking since Anita's house, and the times we've talked since then, I didn't have the right words to say. I still don't, but I can say how sorry I am that I failed you as a brother."

"I wasn't expecting that," he said. Their conversations since he had come out to Richard had been so very careful in some ways, and now the tone of Richard's voice was anything but that. "But what happened in Tennessee, the people who are a hundred percent responsible for that are now a hundred percent dead. It's what I believe. It's what I had to believe in order to be a somewhat functioning human being." 

"But you aren't. Human anymore, and that's because of me. If I had been willing to say something to you when, looking back, you were going through hell, I might have been able to help you then. But I managed to justify to myself that I was respecting your privacy when I was really looking for a reason to not get involved, and the result was that it cost you a shot as a normal human life." 

"What, with the house in the suburbs, white picket fence, wife, three kids, and yellow lab sleeping on the front porch? My life was headed in a different direction than that even before Tennessee." 

"More like a loft downtown with a disco ball over the bed, a civil union with an interior designer named Andre, and two ankle-biting Yorkies that wouldn't stop barking any time I was around. Give me more credit than that," Richard said, a brief ghost of a smile coming and going across his face. "But at least you'd still be human." 

"Or maybe I'd have ended up at the same point in life anyway, just taken an easier route to get there. And before you say anything else, I want you to know that I'm starting to be happier than I have been in a long time," he said as he moved closer to Stavros, snuggling up to him and wrapping an arm around his waist. It felt good to have an excuse to it and have it seen as a show of affection rather than a request for protection. 

"But, there still could have been another option after you found out you were sick, and some way I could have helped more. You could have talked to me."

"I actually put a good amount of thought into it all. Even if you had been willing to make me a wolf, which was no sure thing, I'm not sure it was the right place for me. From what I've heard, not too many male wolves out there with the urban loft and the disco ball bedroom scene. And the ones who are, they end up fighting four or five times as often as the entirely straight guys." 

"You would have been under my protection," Richard quickly said. It surprised Daniel to hear that from him, that Richard's thoughts since the meeting at Anita's would have gone in that direction. Richard had been so strongly in the 'better to die than be turned' camp for so long.

"First, I can't live my life always relying on someone else to save or protect me. I've got to be able to stand up for myself for good or bad. And second, it seemed like, even if for some freak reason I'd asked and for an even freakier reason you'd said yes, I would have always been Richard Zeeman's baby brother, and even more of a target as someone who could get used against you if I was going to be smack in the middle of the supernatural community rather than on the far, far fringes. And I never ever want to get used like that again." Daniel had learned to long ago block out those particular memories in order to stay somewhat functional in the world, but they still swirled through his subconscious, poking at the hyena and threatening to push it to the fore of his consciousness. As he took a deep breath and started one of the mental calming exercises he had been taught, he squeezed Starvos around the waist. The other man ran his free hand across Daniel's cheek and tucked a strand of dark hair behind Daniel's ear. 

"And as much as you probably deserve better than me as a brother, you're still stuck with me. People still know who you are even if they call you Darius now."

"And I wouldn't want to stop being your brother. You may not believe it, but you've done a lot for me, and I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful that you didn't out me in front of Mom & Dad when you probably had lots of chances while I was still trying to be comfortable with that part of myself. As for the name thing, I'm allowed to still be Daniel at work, and when I'm around family and friends who don't know about the lycanthropy." 

"And when you're around the wolf king?"

"I'm not going to say anything about which name gets used if neither of you do. A trained bodyguard is supposed to be discreet after all," Stavros said, entering the conversation. 

"And you've got my brother's best interests at heart?" Richard said. 

"Very much so," he said, leaning over and planting a light kiss on Daniel's temple. 

"What do you see in him?" Richard asked. Daniel found himself a little relieved that the conversation seemed to be moving away from the heavier stuff and toward the expected grilling of the significant other. 

"First, he's hot. Those of us who were brought into the pack after Chimera aren't here because of our looks, the old-timers in the pack all have their boyfriends already, and when someone like Daniel comes in, he definitely turns heads among the singles population in the pack. Second, there's an excellent brain behind those lovely eyes. He doesn't try to be a know-it-all, but he's smart and interesting and has a good heart and can be damn funny when you're paying attention to what he's saying. There are people who are going to write him off as a pretty face, and it's going to be fun to watch them realize how wrong they are in that regard."

"That's a better answer than I was expecting, and you're right about people are probably going to underestimate him at first. But there's one thing I was to be clear with you about. I know how often probationary period relationships start, and I know that it's about fifty-fifty if they last. If this one isn't going to last, don't break his heart when you're breaking up. Because unnecessary cruelty on your part… remember that Narcissus owes me a few favors of the type where he probably would lend out a few of his people to me upon request." 

"Hey, no threatening my boyfriend!" Daniel said as he pulled away from Stavros a little and actually moved himself between the two men. "And I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and my own love life." 

"A lot more than you used to be. I've been paying attention to you in that regard for a while. But now we better get inside the house. People heard and saw the car pull up and I'm surprised there haven't been other people coming out to find us. I made sure that Glenn brought Missy in case you need extra allies today." 

"Missy? What did you say to her to get her to come? Missy is my brother Glenn's wife and she usually only comes to the house for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas because she just really doesn't get along with Mom," Daniel offered as an explanation to a slightly confused-looking Stavros. 

"Only that you're coming through to the other side of some rough patches in your life and could use her support. Missy has always liked you, and if you need some sort of verbal protection from anyone today, she's very good at providing that cover."

"You are someone who uses the resources available to him. Makes me think better of you as a leader," Stavros told Richard. 

Before Richard could say anything in reply, they were through the front door of the Zeeman family home, a neatly kept center hall colonial. To the left in the den, Beverly and Sean's sons and Aaron's daughter were making something out of the giant vat of legos that got brought out every time nieces and nephews were in the house, to the right, siblings and spouses gathered in the living room. In the background, he could hear the sounds of Mom finishing dinner and Dad setting the table in the dining room used only on Sundays and holidays. 

"Stavros, this is Aaron, Beverly, Glenn, Missy, and Sean. Everyone, this is my boyfriend, Stavros," he said, pulling the other man's hands into his. Say it for the first time all at once before he had time to think about it or screw it up.

"Daniel has said a lot of good things about you all," Stavros said, doing his best to sound cheerful. There was shock and surprise on his family's faces, and then a few heart rates spiked up enough to get the hyena unfortunately interested in it all. Big breath, push the hyena back so that he wasn't thinking about how it seemed like the heart rate spike meant someone was about to bolt from yummy yummy fear, and by the time he collected himself, Stavros' left hand was in its familiar place on his back and human faces had gone back to pleasant and polite. Good manners didn't dictate any other response. 

"Good to meet you," Beverly said, getting up from the couch and shaking Stavros' hand. "If anyone wants to raise a fuss now, I ask that it be a quiet fuss since Daria's sleep habits have been shit lately and you really don't want to wake her up and get her screaming." Compared to her sons, Daria had not been an easy pregnancy for Beverly, nor was she apparently an easy baby. Daniel felt a brief pang of guilt that he hadn't spent as much time with nieces and nephews as he should. For a second, he wondered if he should offer to babysit so that Beverly and Sean could have some alone time, but then he discarded the thought. While his control around adults was good as long as they weren't scared of something, he wasn't sue if he was ready to trust the hyena around smaller prey just yet. 

Then Richard pulled him away from Stavros, his hand sliding into the usual spot along the skin there. The hyena in him started to rumble about being pulled away from the safety of pack, but Richard dropped his shields for just an instant, and the amount of power he saw in his brother in that flash made a clear message: keep still and controlled and the wolf would keep them safe; try something else, and the wolf could overpower them quickly. With that nudge, he was able to tap down on the hyena strongly as Starvos got sucked into the circle of other polite handshakes and introductions. Daniel realized he had been passed over from Stavros to Richard and was effectively being managed by the two other shifters in the room. 

"So this is the very cute reason. Don't worry; I've got your back," Missy said as she slid up next to him.

"I think you haven't finished the introductions yet," Mom said as she walked from dining room to living room with Dad. For all that she was trying to sound calm, Daniel could hear the tension in her voice. 

"Um, Mom, Dad, this is Stavros. I said I was bringing the person I was dating to dinner, and he's it," he said, bouncing back from his place near Richard to where he was holding Stavros' hand again.

"Welcome to our home," Dad said. "Would you or anyone else care for a drink? I think I could stand one right now." 

"I need to cut the roast," Mom said. She started to take a step back toward the kitchen, then manners caught up with her and she managed to shake Stavros' hand and mumble a polite welcome as well before bolting from the room in slow motion. 

Dad moved to the bar at one end of the living room, breaking out the good crystal from the top shelf. "Does brandy work for everyone?" 

He poured the liquor to a chorus of yeses and then passed the glasses around before retreating back to the kitchen, his own glass in hand, to allegedly help Mom put the finishing touches on the mashed potatoes. There was an uncomfortable pause before Sean tried to break the ice.

"So, not to stereotype or anything, but Stavros is a pretty Greek name and I wouldn't expect that from a pale redhead."

"The great American melting pot and all. I'm a grand total of one sixteenth Greek. The family names got handed down even when the look got diluted right out by Swedes and Irish," Stavros said. It was a half-truth that he had probably told many times at this point. Daniel knew he really was mostly Swedish and Irish but the Greek came when he had fully embraced Narcissus' new name while looking for a fresh start after some bad years in the Army.

"And the melting pot is something we understand around here. It's not like anyone in this family looks particularly Dutch," Glenn said. 

"Not one bit," Beverly said. The Native American part of their family heritage came through clearest in her. 

There were a few minutes more of polite conversation as the brandy was consumed and then Mom and Dad were calling out that dinner was ready. Everyone, adult and child alike, moved into the dining room at that point, with Dad at the head of the main table, Mom to his side, and Beverly and Aaron at the foot of the table so they could help out at the adjacent children's small table when needed. As the rest of them got into place, Stavros was introduced to the kids as Daniel's friend, and Daniel not unexpectedly found himself seated between Richard and Stavros, each of the men's knees places against his as they signaled they'd have his back if something went down in the room that was so stuffed with tables and chairs that the lack of room to move was making his hyena nervous. 

Grace was said, then the wine bottles were passed around. Without really thinking about it, Daniel filled up his glass as the wine came to him.

"You're drinking again?" Aaron said. "First the brandy and now wine. It's not too much again, is it?" 

"No, I'm not overdoing it." 

"Good for a while there, you know? And you remember your friend James Peterson? He came to me and said that you cut him out of your life when he tried to tell you that you were drinking too much. I didn't want you to do that to family too, but I worried and tried to keep an eye on you," Aaron said. 

"Scout's honor. I'm not a lush anymore," he said holding up fingers in the Boy Scout salute. Apparently Richard hadn't been the only one to notice how often he used to show up hung over at Sunday dinner. Nor apparently the time period when medication had forced him back to sobriety. 

"Good. Now family tradition says that company gets first pick from the roast before he starts to pass it around," Dad said. Stavros took his portion, then sent it to Daniel and in a few seconds both meat and side dishes were gliding around both tables. People went largely quiet for a few minutes as they got a start on their meals, and Daniel found himself unhappy with his meat. It was appropriately cooked and seasoned in an objective sense and something he had eaten and enjoyed a hundred times before but now it just seemed to be so overdone and tasteless and lifeless. If there was a next time for Sunday dinner, he found himself hoping that it would be prime rib instead because that would be properly pink in the middle and still seem to have some life in it. 

"I always liked it when you brought Sara home. She was such a nice girl, you know," Mom finally said. 

"She still is. It just wasn't going to work out between us," Sara had been his last serious girlfriend, and everyone had expected them to get engaged at Christmas during their senior year in college ,just like Beverly, Aaron and Glenn had. Instead, they had ended up breaking up a few weeks before that when he had ironically found himself crushing hard on a guy what had made a pass at Sara, and all the feelings he had been doing his best to repress for years had rushed out through that breaking dam.

"You should have tried harder. You were obviously such a good couple. Everyone who saw the two of you together agreed." 

"We had some good times and some really great times, but in the end, I was never going to be able to give her a hundred percent of what she deserved, and looking back there was something in it for me missing too. So what else was I supposed to do?" The answer was apparently to do what she was told, and the hyena seemed to oddly agree with that concept. The opinion of dominant females was apparently something one should strongly consider and agree to regardless of their species. But he had learned that there were some things in life where you just had to stand up to a dominant woman about.

" You would have had such lovely children together, though. And now you never will. We gave you every advantage you could, paid all your college expenses and would have helped with your law school tuition as well, and this, this is how it turns out?" Mom said, getting louder as she tried to keep the anger out of her voice. 

"Charlotte…" Dad said.

"Can we keep it down and not wake up Daria?" Beverly said as she tried to keep the children's table eating and not asking too many questions.

"These are probably discussions best continued where there aren't so many ears," Mom said. "Now if you'd pass the rolls, please."

Aaron sent the bread basket toward the head of the table and Daniel let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He reached under the table, squeezing Stavros on the leg, and got a little bit of a back rub in return. The rest of the dinner was something of a disjointed blur, with Sean and Aaron trying to keep a conversation about everything other than the elephant in the room, Richard occasionally joining them, and Missy occasionally shooting him looks that seemed to remind him offer willingness to go toe to toe with Mom if need be. And then finally it was over. Not totally over because there were definitely more talks with Mom ahead that wouldn't be comfortable, but at least he had taken that first step and there was one part of his life that he didn't have to hide anymore.


End file.
